


A Tender Lover

by Arcadias_Fire



Series: Seeking Mischief [6]
Category: British Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Humor, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Loki (Marvel) Gets a Hug, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcadias_Fire/pseuds/Arcadias_Fire
Summary: “I knew you were watching.”“Beloved, there were many cameras. Everyone was watching.”“Oh lord.” Tom brought his hands up to cover his face. “I’m going to kill Jeff.”“He had some excellent points. You are an exceedingly tender lover.”***Tom comes home after the “Goldblum” incident truly dreading the teasing that Loki will give him, but he learns more about his lover than he bargained for.





	A Tender Lover

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t seen the GQ award clip with Jeff Goldblum and Tom Hiddleston, go and watch it now. I laughed my ass off for half an hour the first time I saw it. 
> 
> Several people suggested that I write about this - you know who you are - and it’s given me the opportunity to deal with some… unspoken assumptions about Loki’s past. So here you go.

 

For once, Tom was not looking forward to getting home.

 

Loki was disinclined to attend large events, which meant that he was alone. Tom had spent _years_ going to events alone, so that was fine. He didn’t miss the attention having a date brought, no matter who that date was. Their relationship was still fresh enough in the mind of the public that reporters would ask awkward questions - whether “Lucas” was with him or not - that were best left behind closed doors. This annoyed Tom, but he was used to it. Loki on the other hand…

 

Loki had no patience for reporters at all. The god thought that the paparazzi were one of Earth’s worst inventions, and - given the bad experiences that Tom’d had in the past - had no problem expressing his distaste. Loki answered questions with a razor barbed - rather than silver - tongue. Or he didn’t answer at all. Pointedly.

 

Not answering at all was better, but not by a lot. Tom was certain that Loki had mastered the art of answering a question with a polite not-answer a long time ago - had been trained as a politician after all - but didn’t care to. They avoided the matter altogether by Loki staying home whenever Tom had a red carpet event. The god didn’t care for large crowds of mortals - it made him feel especially alien - so Loki didn’t mind missing out. Someday that might change, but today, Tom was grateful for it.

 

Unfortunately it meant he had to go home to a trickster god who would torment him for the next month. At least.

 

He stood at the door and sighed. Putting it off wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he unlocked the door and stepped inside the house.  

 

There was a single lamp on in the sitting room, and the kitchen was dark, so Loki had probably gone to bed. Or was at least upstairs for the night. Tom hung up his overcoat and climbed the flight to the first floor, hoping against hope that the god was asleep.

 

Their bedroom was lit.

 

_Damn._

 

Tom pushed the door the rest of the way open. Loki was curled up on the bed with his tablet. The god looked up as Tom entered the room and smiled. “Welcome home, my love. How was your evening?” His lips twitched towards laughter, but didn't quite make it.

 

Tom strode across the room, removing his tie with a quick, sharp jerk. “Don’t start.”

 

Loki’s eyes went wide with clearly feigned innocence. “Can I not ask my lover how his evening went?”

 

Tom turned on his heel and glared down at the god.

 

Loki snickered.

 

“I knew you were watching.”

 

“Beloved, there were many cameras. _Everyone_ was watching.”

 

“Oh lord.” Tom brought his hands up to cover his face. “I’m going to kill Jeff.”

 

“He had some excellent points. You are an exceedingly tender lover.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

Loki studied his nails and continued as though Tom hadn’t spoken. “It’s well for him that I’m not the jealous type.”

 

“It’s good for him that _I’m_ not the jealous type,” Tom snapped. “It’s not me he was talking about, it’s you.”

 

The god snickered again. “To be fair, he has no idea that I’m real.”

 

Tom flopped back onto the bed. “Oh god, I’m never going to live this down.”

 

Loki leaned over and ran his fingers through Tom’s hair. “My poor love.”

 

“Your sympathy would be a great deal more convincing if you weren’t laughing at me.”

 

“Your face was priceless.” The god chuckled and kissed his forehead. “You are completely adorable when you’re embarrassed.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

“You love me.”

 

“Yes, I do. But right now I hate everyone.”

 

Loki laid a soft kiss on Tom’s lips. “No, you don’t hate everyone. You don’t even hate him. You’re just embarrassed and uncomfortable.”

 

“I hate it when you’re right.”

 

The god laughed aloud. “Come to bed, my love. I promise I won’t laugh at you anymore.”

 

“Fine.” Tom got back up and stripped off the rest of his suit and carefully hung it up in the wardrobe, as much as he wanted to toss it onto the floor. After a short trip to the bath, he came back into the bedroom. Loki had set aside his tablet and was smiling at him. Not an “I’m secretly laughing at you” smile, but an “I’m pleased to see you” one. Tom returned the smile and climbed into bed.

 

He melted into the gods arms, finally able to relax. “I hate this sort of attention.”

 

“I know. It’ll fade from memory soon enough.”

 

Tom nodded. Loki was right, but that didn’t make _right now_ any easier. “You know what all of that was in reference to, I assume?”

 

“I do have the internet, beloved.”

 

“So?”

 

“So what?”

 

“So what actually happened?”

 

Loki went instantly tense. “Please don’t ask me that.”

 

Tom had been joking, but Loki’s reaction was too strong for there not to be something there. He sat up. The god’s eyes were closed, his features completely blank and neutral. Tom blinked. This wasn’t Loki dissembling, this was something he genuinely didn’t want to talk about. “Something did happen.”

 

“I really would prefer not to discuss this.”

 

“Are you alright? Did something… was it… bad?”

 

“Must we have this conversation?”

 

“Loki, if you were… If something… not good happened, I want to know.”

 

The god pulled away, curled up on his side, away from Tom. “Many many ‘not good’ things have happened to me over the years, and believe me, you do not wish to hear of them all.”

 

“I…” Tom had an inkling of the sort of things Loki had gone through over the past decade or so, but they tended not to discuss anything traumatic from the god’s past. Maybe avoiding it wasn’t the best idea after all. “What are you afraid of?”

 

Loki shuddered and was quiet for a long moment. “That you will think less of me.”

 

“I could never… Love, please look at me?”  

 

The god rolled back over with a show of reluctance. His pale eyes were wide and terribly vulnerable as he gazed up at Tom.

 

“I will never judge you, Loki. I know who you are and what that means, and I love ever millimeter of you without condition. Always. There’s nothing you could tell me that would change that.”

 

The god sighed and closed his eyes. “I used every weapon at my disposal. Every. Single. One.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

Loki’s reply was a fierce whisper. “I was at the complete mercy of a mad despot who had a flair for violence and all things carnal, what do you think it means?”

 

Tom pulled the unresisting god to his chest. “You seduced him.”

 

“Rather I allowed myself to be seduced, but yes.”

 

“How could I possibly think of less of you for that?” Tom kissed Loki's forehead. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

 

“I wanted to do more than just survive. I wanted a new life. Power. Everything I'd built for myself had been taken away, and here was the opportunity to… to take advantage of the weakness of another to gain those things.”

 

Tom was silent for a long time. “What would have happened if you hadn't ‘allowed’ the Grandmaster to seduce you?”

 

Loki shrugged. “Most likely I would have had to flee Sakaar. Found a new place to rebuild.”

 

“He was that insistent?”

 

The god nodded. “Once he caught sight of me.”

 

“Loki, that's… If that happened on earth, it would be a crime. At least in civilized society.”

 

“It's not as though I didn't enjoy it at the time.”

 

“That's beside the point. You didn't have a choice. Not a reasonable one.”

 

Loki shook his head. “I could have left.”

 

“You shouldn't have had to.”

 

“I made a choice, beloved. I chose to…” he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I chose to…” Loki bit his lip. “I can't…”

 

“You choose to use the weapons you had and the advantages that were given to you.” Tom pulled the god close again and kissed his forehead. “This changes nothing, love.”

 

“That's kind of you to say.”

 

“Have I ever lied to you about how I feel? Ever?”

 

Loki shook his head but refused to meet Tom’s gaze.

 

“And you can always tell when I'm not telling you the truth.”

 

“God of lies,” said the god. 

 

“Exactly. Now look at me.”

 

Loki obeyed. Tom’s heart melted at the pure need in his lover’s eyes.

 

“I love you. There's nothing you could tell me that can possibly change that. I don't care how many people you've had sex with, or how it came to happen. I know you killed people, and I've accepted that too. I know you gave that life up for me. I know you, inside and out. You're a good person. I know you don't think that, but I do. And I love you.” Tom studied Loki's expression. “Do you believe me?”

 

The god gave him a small smile. It was crooked and a little twisted. “I believe that you feel that way.”

 

“But?”

 

“You haven't heard everything.”

 

“And you can tell me if you want, but you don't have to.”

 

“I am not a good person, beloved, whatever you think.”

 

Tom sighed. “Define ‘good’? You're certainly not evil. You've killed, but in contexts that made sense.”

 

Loki interrupted. “Not all of them.”

 

“I'm not counting that. You weren't yourself.”

 

The god shrugged, but also gave a tiny nod.

 

“So. We've talked about this. You saved my life by ending the life of another, and I’m grateful for it. But the dagger isn't your first weapon, words are. You'd rather talk your way out of a bad situation than just…”

 

Loki raised an eyebrow. “Smash?”

 

Tom laughed. “Exactly. And I’ve known all of this for years, even if I didn’t know the… details. I know who you are, and I love you for it. I always have and I always will.”

 

Loki snuggled closer, plastering himself against Tom’s side. “I still…”

 

“No. Listen. Loki, whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. Yes, you made choices, but you weren’t given reasonable options. None of that is your fault.”

 

The god took a deep shuddering breath. “It… it’s difficult to… to believe that. Up until I met you, I… I thought that… that I must be cursed. That my bloodline was so tainted that I could never have anything… That I could never be happy.”

 

Tom opened his mouth to reply, but Loki shook his head, so he let his mouth fall shut and allowed the god to continue.

 

“I didn’t know what it was supposed to be like. What a ‘healthy relationship’ should be. I thought… I thought I had to…” Loki made a quiet choking noise. “I thought I had to be... lesser. That I would always be second and not equal. That was my place. And I’ve fought against it, but it was never… It was never _enough._ _I_ was never enough. I fought and pushed and tried and… It was never enough.” Tears soaked into Tom’s shoulder as he squeezed the god against him.

 

“Oh darling, I’m so sorry.”

 

“No. No you’ve changed me. Made me see that… that I was… am good enough. That it was possible for me to be happy.”

 

Tom kissed the top of Loki’s head. It was the only part of the god he could reach since he was unwilling to let his lover’s shaking form go even for a second. “Someday, you’re going to figure out how we can travel back to your universe, and I am going to punch everyone who’s ever been cruel to you.”

 

This startled a laugh out of Loki. “Most of them are far stronger than you, and many are dead.”

 

“Time travel, then.”

 

Loki giggled. “That would be necessary. And the list is a long one.”

 

“I don’t care, you’re worth it. We can start with Laufey and Odin and work our way down.”

 

“You’re just being silly now.”

 

“Maybe.” Tom chuckled and kissed the smooth black hair again. “I’m glad I make you happy.”

 

Loki pushed himself up and met Tom’s eyes. “You make me ecstatically happy, beloved.”

 

Tom grinned. “It’s mutual. I hope you know that.”

 

“I do. I don’t understand it, but I do know.”

 

“I’ll just have to keep showing you then. Every day for the rest of our lives.”

 

Loki wiped his eyes and smiled. “I look forward to it.”

 

“Shall I start now?”

 

“Mmmm… Please.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, a couple of notes on my FrostMaster headcanon. It’s actually been there right from the beginning, it wasn’t just the “Goldblum Incident” that brought it to mind. There are just a couple of hints of it in previous stories, the most obvious being Loki refusing to tell Tom what actually happened on Sakaar, which is brought up in one of the chapters about Ace Comicon, the other being in “Dreaming of Mischief” when Loki and Tom are fighting about Tom’s motivations for keeping him on Earth with him. 
> 
> _If you believe I have never fucked my way to power, whored myself out for favor and prestige, you are wrong._
> 
> And what happened on Sakaar is (some of) what Loki was thinking about in this bit. 
> 
> There are a few things I’ve avoided writing about - this is one of them - partially because I don’t really want to deal with things pushing into the non-con/dub-con range too much, but some very Not Good things have happened to Loki over the years in my headcanon. I’ve got a bunch of stuff about his time with Thanos, but I’m not going to be writing about that anymore than I already have, mostly because I think it’s going to come up in Avengers IV, and I hate the idea that something I’ve written will be wiped out by canon. So we may see more about that next year some time. 
> 
> As for people requesting things of me, I’m totally fine with that! roo2010 requested a wedding chapter, and it’s in the works, despite my misgivings. Likewise, a bridge between “Consorting with the Enemy” and “The Madness of King Loki” is in the works. So if there’s something that you’d like to see for this Tom and Loki, or any other/new Toms/Lokis, please let me know! It won’t be instant - good writing takes time - but I will try and make it happen.
> 
> The “NEW WORK” is being betaed now, so it’ll be going up real soon. Probably next week.***


End file.
